Corona is a sly assassin

In an up–and-down nation.

It kills less from partying,

More from starvation.

Those that rush decrepit trains

In afflicted mega cities

Have no morsel and no note

In their exhausted kitties.

They may not the virus feel,

But hunger bites so keen

That a jaggery bit in a village home

May be their vaccine.

Their vote gives us governments,

But governments are not for them;

So, as Corona demonitizes now,

They recall an earlier time

When they died in beseeching lines,

Not to an invisible viral trick,

But, less subtly, to lack of food

Brought on by a banking pandemic.

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Badri Raina is a well-known commentator on politics, culture and society. His columns on the Znet have a global following. Raina taught English literature at the University of Delhi for over four decades and is the author of the much acclaimed Dickens and the Dialectic of Growth. He has several collections of poems and translations. His writings have appeared in nearly all major English dailies and journals in India.

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